P
PA - pension adjustment
PA - Power of Attorney (written document authorizing another person to act on behalf of the signer)
PA - Public Accountant (individual licensed by a state, performing professional accounting services for the public)
PA - public accounting (independent auditing and reporting on financial statements)
PA - Purchasing Agent (individual who buys materials/supplies on behalf of an organization)
PAC - Planned Amortization Class bond (collateralized mortgage obligations with a sinking fund payment schedule)
PAC - preauthorized checks (preauthorized payment - prearranged payments/deductions from a bank account for the payment of a third party)
PAC - Put and Call (options market)
PACE - Philadelphia Automated Communication and Execution System (Philadelphia Stock Exchange - electronic order entry system)
PAD - Packet Assembler/Disassembler (data transmission process of converting data into packet form for transmission and converting packet information back into data at the receiving end)
PAD - Preauthorized Electronic Debits (preauthorized payment - prearranged payments/deductions from a bank account for the payment of a third party)
PAL - Passive Activity Loss (loss produced by passive investment activities)
PAN - Personal Area Network (a microcomputer network used for communications among computer device being used by an individual person)
PAYE - pay as you earn (income tax withholding (UK))
PBC - prepared by the client
PBGC- Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (federal corporation set up to guarantee basic pension benefits)
PBO - Projected Benefit Obligation (estimated liability of a pension plan)
PBOT - Philadelphia Board of Trade (futures trading exchange)
PBR - payment by result
PBR - price-to-book ratio (ratio of a stock's price to its book value per share)
PBX - private branch exchange (a telephone exchange (computer-based switch) that acts as a small, in-house phone company for the business that operates it)
PC - participation certificate (certificate representing an interest in a pool of funds, or in other instruments)
PC - personal computer/microcomputer (small computer system or workstation, designed for an individual user, inexpensively priced, and based on microprocessor technology)
PC - petty cash (fund/account used to pay for small, occasional items - office supplies)
PC - plus commissions (brokerage term for including commissions in stock purchases and sales)
PC - price-to-cash flow ratio (market capitalization divided by net earnings plus noncash charges, or market price per share divided by cash flow per share)
PC - prime cost (direct materials and direct labor plus direct overhead)
PC - professional corporation
PC - purchase commitment
PCAOB - Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (private-sector nonprofit corporation created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the auditors of public companies)
PCB - petty cash book
PCC - Private Company Council (body created to establish alternatives to GAAP for private entities)
PCF - price/cash flow ratio (market value per share divided by the cash flow per share)
PCGE - potential capital gains exposure
PCPS - Private Companies Practice Section (division of the AICPA for CPA firms serving nonpublic companies)
PCR - Platform Configuration Register (computer memory area used to store cryptographic hashes of data)
PCR - program change request (formal user request/submission for changes to be made to a software program or system)
PCX - Pacific Exchange (San Francisco-based stock options exchange)
PDCA - Plan-Do-Check Act Cycle (approach to continuous improvement management involving planning, small-scale implementation, analysis, and full implementation)
PDN - public data network (network available for public use for communications)
PE - price earnings ratio (price of a stock divided by its basic earnings per share)
PEFCO - Private Export Funding Corporation (trade finance corporation owned by a consortium that arranges loans to foreign buyers)
PEG - prospective earnings growth ratio (projected one-year annual growth rate for a company)
PEP - personal equity plan
PEPS - participating equity preferred stock
PER - package-enabled reengineering (packaged business software system that allows an organization to automate and integrate the majority of its business processes, share data, and access information)
PER - price earnings ratio (market price per share divided by its basic earnings per share)
PERCS - Preferred Equity Redemption Cumulative Stock (form of preferred stock that allows common shareholders to exchange common stock for preferred shares)
PERLS - principal exchange-rate-linked securities (debt instrument denominated in U.S. dollars but with principal repayment linked to the performance of the U.S. dollar against a foreign currency)
PERS - public employee retirement system
PERT - Program Evaluation and Review Technique (management tool for planning, coordinating, and controlling large, complex projects)
PF - Pro Forma (statement or report based on the results if a hypothetical event had happened in the past)
PFD - Preferred Stock (class of capital stock that pays dividends at a specified rate - normally without voting rights)
PFP - personal financial planning
PHC - personal holding company
PHLX - Philadelphia Stock Exchange (first organized stock exchange in the U.S.)
PHSP - private health service plan
P&I - principal and interest (payment on bonds or mortgage-backed securities)
PI - perpetual inventory (system of inventory control that regularly/continuously updates inventory quantities, instead of an annual inventory count)
PIBOR - Paris Interbank Offer Rate (rate banks charge other financial institutions for large loans)
PICPA - Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (Philippine professional accounting and external auditing organization)
PICS - Platform for Internet Content Selection (specifications for meta tags that label web sites with their content ratings)
PID - process identification (value/number/name assigned to a program operation process for system identification)
PID - project initiation document (written authorization to begin a project)
PIG - Passive Income Generator (investment whose main activity produces passive income)
PIK - Payment-In-Kind (payment for goods and services made in the form of other goods and services, rather than cash or other forms of money)
PIN - personal identification number (a type of password - secret number assigned to an individual - that serves to verify the authenticity of the individual)
PIPES - Private Investment in Public Equity Securities (investment by private investors in stocks)
PITI - principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (primary components of monthly mortgage payments)
PJ - purchase journal (journal for recording purchases of goods on account)
PKI - public key infrastructure (a series of processes and technologies for the association of cryptographic keys with the entity they were issued to)
P&L - Profit and Loss (Statement) (financial report showing income and expenses)
PL - price list
PL - purchase ledger (ledger that contains the accounts of customers)
PLC - programmable logic controller (computers designed to control electromechanical/industrial processes - assembly lines, industrial plants, steel mills, elevators)
PLC - Public Liability Company (limited company that offers shares or securities to the public - British equivalent to incorporation in the United States)
PLC - Public Limited Company (British)
PLP - periodic lease payment (fair market value of leased property in excess of present value)
PLUS - Personal Liability Umbrella Security Plan (AICPA member insurance)
PMBOK - Project Management Body of Knowledge (collection of the knowledge and best practices of the project management profession)
PMI - Private Mortgage Insurance (type of insurance available from lenders that insures against loss resulting from default on a mortgage loan)
PMI - Project Management Institute (nonprofit international organization of project managers that promotes the field of project management)
PML - probable maximum loss (maximum foreseeable loss - the maximum amount that could be lost under a realistic situation)
PMV - Private Market Value (aggregate market value of a company if each of its parts operated independently and had its own stock price)
PN - Project Note (short-term debt issue of a municipal agency, usually a housing authority, to finance the construction of public housing)
PN - Promissory Note (written promise to pay a specified amount of money)
PNW - present net worth (company's total assets in excess of total liabilities)
PO - Principal Only
PO - purchase order (Form used by a purchasing department to order goods or merchandise.)
POA - Power of Attorney (written document authorizing another person to act on behalf of the signer)
POB - Public Oversight Board (group consisting mostly of nonaccountants that oversees activities of CPA firms belonging to the AICPA's SEC practice section)
POC - Proof of Concept (documentation, test results, and prototyping needed to show that an acquisition/vendor submission fulfills the project procurement requirements)
POD - Pay on Delivery
POE - Port of Embarkation
POE - Port of Entry
POP - Proof of Possession (verification that a subject possesses a private key being registered with a certificate authority and that it matches the public key requested for a certificate)
POR - Pay on Return
POS - Point-of-Sale system (system that uses a computer terminal located at the point of sale transaction so that the data can be captured immediately by the computer system)
POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service (conventional telephone landline system of analog voice transmission)
PP - paper profit (pre-tax accounting income)
PP - payback period (time period required to recover the original cost of an investment)
PPBS - Program-Planning-Budgeting System (planning-oriented approach to developing a program budget)
PP&E - property, plant and equipment (long-lived fixed productive assets used in operational or administrative activities)
PPF - Professional Practices Framework (framework for internal auditing established by the Institute of Internal Auditors)
PPI - Producer Price Index (measurement of the change in wholesale prices - U.B. Bureau of Labor Statistics report)
PPP - Point-to-Point Protocol (protocol used for transmitting data between two ends of a connection)
PPP - Purchasing Power Parity (measure of the comparative value of the dollar/money - purchasing power - as impacted by inflation)
PPPoE - Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (use of a modem connection to a digital subscriber line (DSL) in a residential or business wide area network to connect to the Internet through a service provider)
PPS - Prior Preferred Stock (preferred stock with a higher claim than other issues of preferred stock on dividends and assets)
PPS - probability proportional to size (audit sampling technique in which the probability of selecting any individual population item is proportional to its recorded dollar amount)
PPTP - Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (protocol used to implement a virtual private network between two computers)
PR - payroll (total wages and salaries and other payments made in a particular payroll period)
PR - public relations (department or field of commmunications dealing with the public and concerned with promoting or preserving the image of an organization)
PR - purchase requisition (document used by a user department to request the acquisition of goods or services)
PRC - Peer Review Committee (AICPA committee which evaluates and reviews CPA firms)
PRD - project request document (written authorization/request to begin a project)
PRI - Political Risk Insurance (coverage for business firms operating abroad to insure them against loss due to political upheavals - war, revolution, nationalization)
PRJ - purchase returns journal (journal recording goods returned to suppliers)
PROM - programmable read-only memory (a form of read-only memory (ROM) chip that can be programmed one time because the memory cell become fused during the programming)
PS - price to sales ratio (ratio of a stock's price to its per-share sales)
P&S - Purchase and Sale Statement
PSA - Public Securities Association (former name of The Bond Market Association (TBMA) - nonprofit corporation representing the bond industry)
PSC - prior service cost (estimated cost of prospective retirement benefits considered to have accrued in the years before the adoption of a pension plan)
PSE - Philippine Stock Exchange
PSLRA - Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (law discouraging frivolous class-action lawsuits and limiting attorneys' fees)
PSPA - past service pension adjustment (pension benefit granted to an employee for past service)
PSR - price to sales ratio (ratio of a stock's price to its per-share sales)
PSTN - public switched telephone network (worldwide telephony network consisting of multiple telephone carriers)
PTO - paid time off
PTO - pure trust organization
PTP - publicly traded partnership (partnership which sells shares, like a corporation, which can be traded on an exchange - master limited partnership)
PUC - Public Utilities Commission
PUHCA - Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (federal legislation regulating gas and electric utility companies)
PuPU - purchasing power unit (unit of measure for currency related to comparative purchasing power over time - how much/many items can be bought for a given dollar amount compared to that at a different time)
PV - present value (value today of a payment, or series of payments, to be made in the future, at a given interest rate)
PV Chart - profit-volume chart (chart that determines how profits vary with changes in volume)
PVC - permanent virtual circuit (wide area network (WAN) technology which programs a customer connection in advance)
PVC - polyvinyl chloride (chemical compound used for cable insulation)